A closer look

A personal interpretation of nature

Ozias Leduc paints a great number of landscapes during his career, but the most significant and renowned ones were made between 1913 and 1922.

For Leduc, a landscape is a symbolist expression. It requires multiple readings, probably more than his still lifes or genre scenes.

His landscapes are personal interpretations of his environment. A deeply spiritual artist, he sees the divine in the nature that surrounds him.

For him, there is a communion between man and nature. The divine he shows is accessible and omnipresent. Through his paintings, he invites the viewer to contemplation and meditation.

In this context, he regularly uses shapes and colors reminiscent of twilight, a recurring theme in his landscapes. Mauve hour (1921) is an example. One of the most complex works of Leduc by its choice of form, structure and composition, it represents an accumulation of snow on an oak branch at sunset.

With Green Apple (1914), Leduc is considered by critics and his peers as an artist of importance. Exhibited at the 1915 Spring Salon at the Art Association of Montreal (today the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), this painting is the first of his works to be purchased by the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

Through his landscapes, Leduc symbolizes the struggle of man with the decline of his own nature. He has to face many obstacles in order to rise towards God.